I see in various outlets and articles that USAID has been financing 85-90% of the Ukrainian media. Admittedly none of my sources for this claim are passionate admirers of US foreign policy and NATO: But I put to you that the following sentence, penned by Glenn Greenwald makes very good sense:
But the reason USAID was created in the first place is because it’s so much easier to access and manipulate other countries when there’s a pretense of humanitarianism to it rather than an explicit CIA or State Dept program.
Read it again. Is there any reason on earth why the US would not pretend to have philanthropic intentions in a country whose leadership they want to support in the face of popular opposition, or whose leadership they want to topple?
USAID (pronounced U-S-A-I-D) USA International Development – is not an acronym. It was created by then President Kennedy in 1961 with the specific aim of countering Soviet Influence. According to The Times of India, USAID has continued its foreign interference with unabashed energy since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, for instance in Cuba, Bolivia, Russia, Brazil, Peru.
According to the Iranian Press TV:
USAID, the agency responsible for implementing much of the US foreign aid program, is significantly impacted by Trump’s order. The directive effectively halts the agency’s current $42.8 billion budget allocated for global operations. (my highlight)
…about
According to observers, there is a dark side to US-provided foreign aid, particularly involving USAID.
Over the years, activists have frequently exposed the exploitation of USAID by successive US governments to push their nefarious agendas abroad. In numerous instances, the agency has served as a cover for US “regime change” plots in many countries, from Cuba to Syria to Venezuela.
Afshin Rattansi, British journalist and author, underscored that USAID functions as “an arm of regime change and subversion,” infiltrating societies in the Global South and inciting unrest against leaders who either refuse to comply with Washington’s economic or do not align with US foreign policy.
“Millions in the global south will celebrate the end of this organization which created fake neoliberal revolutions for hire, to destroy real revolutionary movements and governments,” Rattansi wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday.
Why do I quote an Iranian outlet? Because I believe it is essential to hear all parties to an argument, be they friend or foe. I am not quoting the Brookings Institute, which also holds strong opinions on the matter, because those are the opinions most of us hear many times a day, year in and year out. In any case, the Iranian Press TV which I just discovered today, looks very interesting, indeed. I put to you that we know no more about Iran than what the US/EU wants us to know, which is not much, and not necessarily all correct.
Anyway, here is a quote from a source most people in the US/EU consider “respectable”, France24. I find the quote eerily unsubstantial:
USAID, an independent agency established by an act of Congress, manages a budget of $42.8 billion meant for humanitarian relief and development assistance around the world.”
You might take a look at how other outlets assess USAID, though I would consider opening the following links a waste of time, unless you have a sense of humour:
- According to the White House
- According to Newsweek
- According to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman
I must admit, though that the following item from the White House caught my eye:
More than $9 million of USAID’s ‘humanitarian aid’ intended to feed civilians in Syria ended up in the hands of violent terrorists, including an affiliate of Al Qaeda in Iraq.”
Some of the moneys disbursed by USAID have no doubt contributed to disaster relief. (I am all for disaster relief.) Most of it, however, is not.
How do I know? I was taught, way back in time, to do my research conscientiously. What I have since learnt is that I should not blindly trust my government any more than I should trust corporations or other gold diggers. They all have vested interests. The same goes for independent journalists, of course. But over the years, I tend to trust a handful including those of the Greyzone. Time and time again, Greyzone has provided meticulous and painstaking research, not necessarily of the spectacular “scoop” kind, but of the kind that subsequently proves to have been invaluable, as in their take on USAID, a topic they have been following for years.
I just watched a film from 1972, directed by the magician Costa Gavras, State of Siege. Would you believe that the chief villain in the film was a USAID torture instructor, or rather USAID itself. I actually remember the case – yes, it was real enough – but I didn’t know about USAID. We can thank Trump for exposing that USAID is not all that it seems. And we can thank Costa Gavras for explaining in considerable detail what it pretended to be versus what it really was.
Sources:
- According to the Greyzone (Do please see, not least, GZ’s linked sources)
- According to Georgian state TV (should we not also hear a victim’s story?)
- Lastly, Glenn GReenwald’ extremely interesting examination of Wikileaks documentation regarding a similar and very large and powerful organisation that nobody has ever heard of.
From the US tax payers’ perspective, there is the issue of accountability: Just how were the moneys used? To what bank accounts in whose names, were they disbursed. Where are the receipts regarding their actual use? Did such expenditures truly serve US interests, or just the interests of the 1%? It is a marvel that taxpayers have not long since demanded accountability!
We occasionally hear about the black hole in Ukraine, into which billions have disappeared. Most recently Zelensky himself said that Ukraine has only received 76 billion USD out of the 177 bn allegedly delivered by the US. Here I quote the KYIV Independent:
Ukraine has not received even half of the $177 billion the U.S. allocated to support Kyiv throughout the full-scale war, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with U.S. podcaster Lex Fridman released on Jan. 5. Zelensky implied that this development may have been linked to corruption or lobbying on the side of U.S. companies. Ukraine’s head of state said this in response to Fridman’s question about corruption concerns in Ukraine.
On second thought, I will quote Brookings, because their defence of USAID is so outrageously misleading as to be directly ludicrous. (My emphases in bold: what is ludicrously false)
Abolishing the congressionally funded USAID would hurt U.S. interests in multiple ways that go beyond the core principle of U.S. policy to save lives.
USAID’s efforts to prevent conflict around the world, encourage democratic and pluralistic processes and protect human rights, reduce suffering from death and disease, encourage sustainable economic growth, and prevent environmental destruction reflect the essence of the United States. They help build an international environment that services U.S. interests and values
By way of conclusion, here is the very first sentence in Wkipedia‘s article on “Indoctrination”:
Indoctrination is the process of inculcating (teaching by repeated instruction) a person or people into an ideology, often avoiding critical analysis. (My highlight)
I put to you that we are all – here, there and everywhere – subject to massive indoctrination. Yes, here, too. And we all know that, but somehow we fail to take the fact into account when our sources tell us again and again and again about countries “we” don’t like. Some of what we are told is undoubtedly true, but much is false, deliberately so, at that.
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